The Year Italy Joined the World War
Part 10: A Call to Arms, October 3, 1940
By early October, Mussolini judged that Italy was ready for war. Not simply any war, but a real war with other great powers. Only one great power was left standing against the Axis in the latter half of 1940: Great Britain. They stood off the coast, just out of reach of the German Wehrmacht. The Kriegsmarine was not strong enough to contest the control of the sea, the Luftwaffe was not powerful enough to dominate the sea from the air, the Heer had no way to cross the body of water in front of it and grapple with the British divisions on the far side. It had conquered Denmark and was invading Sweden. These were mere distractions, however. They could only commit Germany to maintaining more fronts with no real progress made toward actually ending the war. Germany was not, and indeed could not, terminate the war on its own terms; it could only expand it now.
Italy, on the other hand, had the potential to win. The Regia Marina was increasing in power and would soon be able to successful take on the battle fleets of the old, the declining sovereign of the seas. The Regio Esercito was a blooded instrument, ready to fight wherever it was. In North Africa and southern Spain, it outnumbered the British armies that would attempt to hold the field against it. The Regia Aeronautica was the least of the services, but steps were being taken to rectify this situation to some extent. Italy was even prepared for a long war; its conquests of the previous two years had seen to that. Large stockpiles had been prepared, and Italy was nearly self-sufficient in all necessary resources. Mussolini finally answered Hitler’s call to arms.
The call to arms!
The array of the coalition against the Axis was impressive, until who they were was taken into account. The only great power was Great Britain. Her dominions of Canada, Australia and South Africa were also engaged in war. Ireland, Liberia and Mexico were also part of the coalition but were hardly significant. Of all the other states, only Sweden was not a country already defeated, though it was sure to fall some time. Poland had collapsed, and the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Denmark had all been overrun by the Germans. Yugoslavia had been conquered by the Italians the previous year. The enemies with which Italy had gone to war were hardly imposing, on the whole. Only the British had the means and reach to pose a challenge to Italy in its envisioned sphere of empire: the Mediterranean. Their Mediterranean Fleet was huge, easily larger than the entire Regia Marina.
But in the first, most decisive, phase of the war, the Mediterranean Fleet was nearly powerless to do anything. Conceivably, the only course of action that could have allowed the fleet to have an impact on the land campaigns about to start was a ruthlessly employed
guerre de course—commerce raiding. If the Mediterranean Fleet had sunk every Italian convoy ship going to North Africa or Spain for a period of a month or so, the Italian merchant marine would have been eradicated and the land offensives finished for lack of supplies. The British, brought up in the glorious tradition of Nelson and Mahan, did not do this. The initiative slid to the Italians, who were to employ it unerringly. Operation Hercules began in the western Mediterranean. Two divisions of Grossi’s army, under Tellera and Gandin, were ready to attack the Rock. In the afternoon of the 3rd of October, the codeword went out. War had begun, and Hercules as well. Two Italian divisions, four brigades, hurled themselves at the British garrison.
Operation Hercules, the attack on Gibraltar, beginning.
Simultaneously, the go-word was sent out to Vercellino’s headquarters in Tobruk as well. His army was the single most powerful army Italy fielded, comprised of three corps totaling ten divisions, including three cavalry and one motorized infantry division. The plan was simple. Two corps were concentrated on the coast under Cei and Geloso, the former being the mobile corps. They were to break through the British defenses and rush forward, not stopping until they reached Alexandria. Dall’Ora’s corps was to secure their southern flank before also piling into the drive forward. British forces in the area were but a fraction of Italian forces: perhaps three divisions. Air General Pricolo was also present, commanding four squadrons of Italian interceptors. Any British bomber that dared stray into the theater of operations would be shot down. Operation Caesar Augustus had begun.
Operation Caesar Augustus, the conquest of Egypt, had begun.
The European war had expanded. Southwestern Europe and North Africa became theaters of operations and the Middle East was not inviolable either. Great Britain, having escaped Germany, suddenly found itself subject to assaults by Germany’s partner, Italy. Italy had finally set itself larger goals than European colonial warfare; Italy was challenging the greatest power in the world, with Germany acting only as a distraction. The real contest had finally begun.